


Our Time, Gone Forever

by ajwolf



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character's Name Spelled as Viktor, Don't copy to another site, Heavy Angst, Hurt, Linguistics, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Paradox, Science Fiction, Star-crossed, Temporal Paradox, Time Travel, Vicchan Lives, archeology
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-11-23
Packaged: 2020-11-24 15:34:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20909969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ajwolf/pseuds/ajwolf
Summary: It's the archeological find of the century and Viktor still can't quite believe he's a part of it.  Viktor's leg bounces the entire plane ride there as the undergrads and masters candidates he's shepherding to the site tease him for his excitement."You're such a nerd, Vitya!" Mila giggles, poking his cheek, and Viktor just smiles, playfully shoving her back into her seat.He can't wait to get his hands on the stones; to see with his own eyes how it all ties together.  To plunge headfirst and get lost in his work trying to decode a new and long-dead language to unlock the secrets of the past.Little does he know just how far he'll go.





	1. The Stones in the Wood

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my contribution to the Viktuuri Angst Bang 2019! I am partnered with two amazing and talented artists, elianthos and simgrim, who will both be adding some lovely art to the fic as we go. I'll be sure to link all the art to the corresponding chapters as they post, so be sure to check it out and give them some love for their hard work.
> 
> This fic will be updating every Saturday. Tags will be added. The rating may change. I'm almost finished writing and deciding on some final details which may affect it (nothing violent).
> 
> Please enjoy!

Viktor breathed in a long, lung-filling breath of cool air, letting the world around him settle into his soul. He couldn’t help but smile as he gazed around the remote and ancient forest, the trees hiding their hidden treasures; the ground underfoot, rich in color and nutrients for the life growing all around, sat just a few feet thick over the archeological find of the century. 

He couldn’t wait to be waist-deep in the fragrant soil, uncovering the secrets that hadn’t seen the sun in nearly a millennia; and he was all but giddy with anticipation.

Smiling to himself, he pushed through the flap of the canvas tent, calling out cheerily as he went. “Good Morning Professor Baranoskya!”

“For Christ’s sake, Vitya, call me Lilia! You’re making me feel old.” The Professor scowled at him from where she stood bent over a pile of maps, her hand scratching notes in pencil along the edges of the slightly worn documents, adding to the notes Viktor had already added before he arrived with their gear and students in tow.

“Sorry, Lilia,” he chuckled. “It’s hard to break the habit when I’ve been around the undergrads for the past 24-hours.”

The Professor chuckled softly as she straightened up, cracking her back as she did, giving him a once over. “I trust the flight was uneventful?”

Viktor nodded, “Just the ordinary headaches that come with flying five masters candidates and fifteen undergrads halfway across the world. A lot of sleepy, jet-lagged faces, but they’re all settled in now and the grads are keeping an eye on things. Though I’m not sure they'll have much luck keeping Mila and Sara out of trouble.”

Lilia snorted. “Not likely. I expect a bottle will be passing around in no time.”

Viktor chuckled. “Of that, I have no doubt.”

“I’d advise you to get some sleep now, but I have a feeling if I don’t take you to the ring you’ll spend half the night wandering in the dark looking for it.”

Viktor shrugged with a sheepish grin. “You know me too well Lilia. What can I say, I’ve been itching to see it myself ever since you sent those pictures. That language is amazing; I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Lilia sighed. “There’s something about this place. It feels like we’re missing something; like there’s something  _ more _ hidden just beneath our feet. I can’t help but think that ring, and whatever is written on the stones, is the key to all of it.” She paused and looked at him seriously. “But, that all being said, Vitya, I want you to remember to live while we’re here. It may take us years to unlock this place, but it’s our site, yours and mine. We found and I’ll be damned if our claim gets scooped up by anyone else, so make sure you take care of yourself first.”

Viktor had heard all this before. His tendency to get sucked into his work was well known among his professors. “Yes yes,” he said with a wave, as he held open the tent flap to allow the Professor to show him the way. “I will. You don’t have to worry about me, Lilia.”

Lilia eyed him, before shaking her head and stepping out of the tent into the rapidly darkening night. As she passed, Viktor was fairly certain he heard her mutter, “That’s not very reassuring”, though he paid it no mind.

Lilia headed down the path and away from camp, Viktor following along in her wake. “It’s almost strange being here now with so many others,” Viktor mused. “It was just us in the beginning…”

They'd first found this site during Viktor's undergrad years. He'd been Lilia's only aid that year, and as a special credit the summer before his final year she dragged him out to Eastern Russia to search for a fabled 'lost civilization' they'd found a reference to in some old tablets Lilia had uncovered the previous season – and translated with Viktor's help.

They hadn't honestly expected to find anything, as vague as the clues were, but low and behold, just a few weeks into their dig, they'd found signs of life.

Now, four years later and having completed his Masters and nearly finished with his Ph.D. coursework, Viktor was back and desperate to see the newest discovery the team had literally stumbled upon just a few months prior.

Lilia gave a happy sigh, “We’ve certainly come a long way.”

When they’d traversed the ridgetop path nearly half a mile outside of the main camp, Lilia turned, leading him down the steep slope, over a hastily cleared dirt path that zigged and zagged this way and that. There were makeshift stairs pounded into the ground every now and again when the dirt pitched down over some bump in the terrain or another, and the occasional rope slung between two posts in a sort of handrail to navigate the trickiest bits. Even so, the climb was a nerve-wracking drop into the lush valley below.

The ruins they were headed to were just a short, ten-minute walk from the village, but despite the proximity, this site had remained undiscovered and unnoticed until Lilia had quite literally stumbled upon it when she was out for a morning walk. The small clearing was surrounded by tall, old-growth trees, and Viktor knew from photos that you could just make out the small break in the trees from above — but if you didn’t know the hidden wonder was there, it was nearly impossible to spot.

It was a circle of stone; a true marvel to rival the likes of Stonehenge. Huge rock pillars formed a ring, each with shallow etchings sketched into their surface and surrounding the perfectly circular stone floor. It too was covered in the same markings, and while Viktor intrinsically knew this ancient civilization could easily create such a perfect circle with just a bit of string, it still impressed him, nonetheless.

“We’ve determined the carvings to be some sort of star map. It’s a bit off from the current night sky, but two-thousand-plus years of celestial drift can account for that. It’s remarkably accurate,” Lilia supplied as they stepped into the clearing and Viktor stared in wonder for the first time at the ruins before him. The photos had not done them justice.

“So it’s a calendar?”

“Best we can tell, but what’s really interesting is how they made the lines”.

She held up her light to one of the pillars and Viktor’s eyes went wide. He’d seen photos of the pillar faces, and he’d seen photos of the script, but he hadn’t realized the etchings in the stone faces were the script themselves!

Minute, tightly wound flowing letters created the seemingly solid lines scratching each rock surface; not just on the pillars, now that he really looks, but the floor as well.

“We think each pillar correlates to a specific date, detailing an important event in their culture. The script tells the details, while the form tells the time. At least that’s our best guess since we can’t actually read it. No matter what it all means, just creating this place would indicate an incredibly advanced culture for the time.”

“Or it could prove our theory that the Dark Ages did more than destroy books,” Viktor whispered.

“Exactly,” Lilia said with a nod. “From what we’ve uncovered in the village, it seems clear this civilization was quite advanced. We’ve found evidence of this same language at every dig so far. I need you to crack this. These stones are telling us something and I want to know what.”

Viktor brushed his fingers reverently over the stone. There were hundreds, if not thousands of markings on each surface, so intricate and detailed, translating just a single stone could take him an entire lifetime. It was so strange and new, and yet, something in Viktor’s mind prickled as he really took in the true nature of the stones for the first time.

“It’s a map,” he whispered, and Lilia’s eyebrows jolted up in surprise. 

“How can you be sure?”

Viktor shook his head as he continued to stare, mouth hanging open. “I don’t know; just a feeling. But this language, it’s not new. Well, it is, but it’s achingly familiar to me. Like when you hear a melody from childhood you just can’t place. I know it, but I don’t know how.”

Lilia patted his shoulder, and Viktor broke his gaze away from the stone, turning towards her smiling face. The Professor brushed his hair out of his eyes in an unusually motherly gesture. “This is  _ our _ place, Vitya, and there is no one I’d rather share it with. You’re by far my favorite student.”

Viktor’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “Lilia! Wha-“

Lilia cut him off with a stern nod (though her eyes still twinkled). “Now you know, so don’t go working yourself to the point of hospitalization,  _ again _ .”

Viktor rolled his eyes. “One time!”

“Is too many!” Lilia admonished sternly, patting his shoulder once more and turning to head back up the ridge. “Just take your time. Breakthroughs don’t come to an exhausted mind.”

Viktor smirked to himself as he turned away, letting the sounds of her footfalls fade away as he gazed up at the stones. There was something so beautiful about them, something that almost felt  _ familiar _ . It was almost as if he wasn’t here alone, but instead, sharing this place and time with  _ someone _ . Someone who was precious to him, someone who was watching over him. 

Someone who was waiting.

* * *

Viktor was never more grateful for battery packs and headlamps as he was when it was two ‘o’clock in the morning and he was on a roll — or at least, he thought he was. He’d been studying the Professor’s stills of the site for months, but now that he was here it was as if all the pieces were coming into place. Of course, this glyph made more sense when positioned here, and this character made everything that followed feel as clear as an obscure language no one could read, could, now that he saw it. It must have somehow been missed by the stills because he was certain he’d never seen it before. Then again, there were an awful lot of symbols. It was more than possible one of the undergrads from the previous semester had just missed photographing certain sections.

He yawned, shaking his head a bit as he smoothed his finger carefully over the symbol, wishing he didn’t have to wear gloves as he did it. There was something strange about a few of these runes. They looked worn down as if human hands had run against them countless times, carving them just a bit deeper.

But why? Why  _ these _ glyphs on  _ these _ stones and not the others?

He wished Makka was with him. Even if she was just sleeping on a cushion beside him, it always helped to bounce ideas off of her. His poodle, and the best doggo that had ever graced the planet with her presence, was his long-time companion and used to traveling the world over. Unfortunately, due to the remoteness of this site, Viktor had been forced to leave her with his old mentor (and Lilia’s ex-husband), Yakov, for a time. She’d be arriving in a few weeks with their next shipment of supplies, but there had been simply too much to bring on this first journey to justify adding a 60-pound poodle and all her supplies to the load.

His baby was his princess, and Viktor would be damned if she traveled anywhere without her $300 dog bed and no less than 15 toys. He spoiled her, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t precious. She was a true champ when it came to staying up all night and studying ancient runes. She even knew better than to pee on 3000-year-old Mayan ruins.

Truly she was the best girl.

But he was alone with his thoughts now as the moon rose high in the sky, the stars bright around him as he stared at the stones, frowning. He wished for once he’d paid more attention in his astronomy class. If these were dates then knowing  _ when _ they were indicating might help him understand  _ what _ they were saying. 

He looked down at his notes, eyes darting back and forth between them and the stone in front of him. According to the astronomy department, this stone was pointing to a time right around 200AD in early summer. They weren’t willing to be more specific than that while working off stills, but one of their PhD students was planning to come do an in-person mapping later that summer and Viktor could feel himself clenching his jaw in impatience wishing it had already been done. He  _ needed _ answers.

What had happened around that time? Well, the start of the Dark Ages for one. He had collected notes on every stone, but  _ this _ one seemed the most important; he was drawn towards it and the way the complicated language flowed across the stone face creating these intricate star charts.

There was  _ something _ different. He shuffled through his stills but they all lined up. Every last symbol and line – and yet Viktor could  _ feel _ there was something wrong. Something had changed.

He narrowed his eyes and leaned forward, looking closer before he finally saw it. A small, barely perceivable indentation; the type one might expect to find on the surface of a stone that had been rubbed thousands of times by a human hand. Each not so much as scratching the surface, but in total, in combination, enough force to slowly wear away a small groove on the surface.

Glancing around, he pulled off his gloves, ignoring every protocol he’d instilled in undergrads for the better part of four years. Lilia would murder him if she found out, but he had to know. Why  _ here _ ?

He pressed his finger to the spot, expecting nothing more than a combined sense of awe and guilt as he placed his own flesh upon a mark that had been touched by so many others from times long since past. But it didn’t. 

Instead, the surface of the tablet suddenly lit up with a glow of pale blue, instantly negating his need for a lamp as he gasped in shock, jumping back a few paces. What was more, now that he looked around, it wasn’t just this stone that was glowing, but a faint light seemed to be emitting from the other stones as well.

Chucking fear to the wind, Viktor stepped to the next stone and searched along its surface until he spotted another such indentation, this one even more minute than the last, but still there, clear as day.

He pressed again and this stone two brightened its glow, the others all pulsing in recognition. 

This was  _ impossible _ . First of all, that this was even happening, but how had no one else found this? Had no one else in all of the hundreds of years since this civilization last called this place home not thought to touch them? Or was there some other trick to them that he wasn’t understanding? But then,  _ how _ ? How could any civilization that had ever lived on earth ever…

He paused. What was it professor Feltsman always said? “The only way we’d truly know what any civilization was capable of is to ask them,” Viktor repeated his master’s Professor’s wisdom to himself. The Dark Ages, the burning of the library of Alexandra? Huge banks of knowledge had been lost to the ages. For all anyone knew, civilizations like this one  _ had _ been capable of this; not just the stellar mapping Lilia had found, but whatever  _ this _ was, this reaction that Viktor was setting off.

His curiosity surged and he hurried, from one stone to another, pushing his finger into each indentation he found. On the stones with more than one such depression, he found himself almost drawn to one over the other, as if the lines of delicate script were calling to him; signaling that  _ this _ was what he needed to do to find his answers. What those answers were, he didn’t know, but suddenly it felt as if  _ so _ many questions were but millimeters away from his understanding if he would only just leap.

He should go fetch Lilia, show her his find; he should take photos, he should be filming this…and yet.

For some reason beyond all, well, reason, he wanted this to be his. His moment. His place. He worked his way around the circle until he’s found — and pressed— the last indentation with the pad of his finger before he stepped back to the center of the ring, staring around at all the stones.

He was surrounded by the soft glow. It felt warm and inviting, but somehow incomplete. As if he’d placed coordinates on a map only to be one short of actually telling him where to go…

His head shot up. It was a calendar, but also a  _ map.  _ A  _ time  _ map. But not one on paper, but a three dimensional one, and he only had points along  _ two _ of the axes. He needed the third dimension…he needed…an origin.

He looked up towards the sky and then back at the stone beneath his feet, his neck flexing back and forth as he took in the similarities and differences.  _ Polaris _ . The North Star. What better way to guide yourself at night than that? There on the stone below was a divot in that  _ same _ relative position. If the stones all around him were the time, then this  _ must _ be the place, or more importantly, the start. 

He got on his knees, hands reverently hovered over the indentation. Dare he deviate one more time; to reach out and touch what was long lost? Could it possibly work? What would  _ working _ even mean?

He took a breath and plunged his finger into the hole, pushing down until it connected to the stone at the bottom of the divot, nearly two knuckles deep, much more than any other groove in the entire structure. 

Suddenly the lights flared and a force as strong as the gravitational pull of Jupiter pinned him to the ground, his hand trapped in the hole as the wind roared around him. 

A tornado? Cyclone? But how, and why? The whole camp would be destroyed! He screamed, and tried to cling onto anything, holding on for one long, terrifying moment before…

He landed?

It was as if he’d fallen down a set of stairs, and yet he’d never moved. He sat up, pulling his hand free, grateful that whatever force that had been pinning him seemed to have let up as he peered around in the dark. Where were his lights?

“Well, this is unexpected.”

Viktor screeched into the dark as the voice startled him. He was torn between fear that he was about to be murdered by some random person, or that Lilia had found him, and he’d definitely be murdered for touching the stones without gloves. Only that wasn’t Lilia’s voice.

“Who’s there?” Viktor’s whispered, his voice quivering.

There was a soft chuckle from the darkness before a young man stepped forward holding what looked like some sort of portable light, a near foot-long cylindrical tube that glowed much like a fluorescent bulb. His hair was black and fluffy, and just a little dirty, as were his clothes which were simple, like something out of a history book, yet not quite. The pants looked a bit more durable, almost like cargo pants, and his top had little pockets sewn into the front, and a hood draped over the back. It wouldn’t have looked out of place in Viktor’s own time, and while a bit strange, would not have drawn many stares in…well,  _ any  _ time. 

On his face was a pair of glasses with blue frames.

“I should be the one asking that as you just somehow managed to use the gateway to come to my village. I never would have thought you’d manage that, Viktor. You’re always surprising me.”

Viktor stared. There was something beautiful about this man in a quiet, unassuming way, and Viktor could feel his heart thumping from more than adrenaline. Why was  _ this _ face so achingly familiar? Those glasses… “How do you know my name; who are you?”

The man smiled, moving closer before sinking down beside Viktor with a kind smile on his face. “Well, I’m Yuuri Katsuki, and I know your name because I’m a big fan of your work.”

Viktor stared. A fan? Some other linguist or archeologist then? They were the only ones who would have bothered to read his articles on similarities between Asiatic and Mesopotamian subtext when read in light of Mayan hieroglyphs (and really, who could blame them with a title like that). 

“And where am I?”

Yuuri motioned around him. “You know the answer to that. Spatially you haven’t moved an inch from where you were before your little trip.”

Viktor frowned, taking his word choice in, his mind racing as he struggled to believe the inescapable conclusion at hand. 

“Then… _ when _ am I?”

Yuuri grinned, tapping his nose with a soft chuckle. “Now you’re getting it.”


	2. The Paradox of Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Viktor gets some answers as well as many more questions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is art for this chapter by simgrim! Be sure to check it out at the end of the chapter!

“Sorry, I climb this hill a lot. Everyone says my stamina is a bit ridiculous,” Yuuri called over his shoulder as he led a panting Viktor back up the steep slope that was now free of any sorts of aids to help the climber navigate the sharp incline.

After a solid ten minutes of Viktor living deep in the state of denial, Yuuri declared that the best way to explain that he had, in fact, traveled through time, was to show him the surrounding area, including the village. Viktor’s mind was fluctuating between belief and in the man’s words and pinching himself sure that he was trapped in some sort of sleep deprived, jet-lagged dream.

So far the pinches had failed to do their job.

“It’s fine,” Viktor huffed, “I suppose I need to work out more.”

He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he heard Yuuri let out a soft giggle before they broke through the trees and onto the open ridgeline looking out onto the valley that surrounded the dig site. Or what would _ someday _be the dig site.

The ridgeline slowly drifted lower, with a lazily winding path that wove it’s way towards the place where, just that afternoon, Viktor had dropped off 15 students to begin their summer studies. Now, instead of the busy campsite and archeological dig, there was a small village with more than a dozen buildings ranging in size from a small cottage to what looked to be a large gathering hall. For a moment Viktor almost forgot it was nighttime because the whole town seemed to glow with that same dim light that the circle had glowed when Viktor touched it. 

“We tend to live communally,” Yuuri said as he stood beside Viktor. “Most of the buildings are either homes for six or so families, or store houses. During the day they transform from living spaces to workshops, schools, and kitchens where we do our work. The largest building is where the elders meet and plan.”

“Plan for what?” Viktor asked, unable to help his curiosity.

Yuuri’s eyes seemed to dim for a moment before he shrugged. “The future, I suppose. I’m not an elder so I don’t really know. When they wish for me to know something, they summon me there, otherwise I tend to the rings and carry on with my assignment.”

“What assignment?”

Yuuri grinned at that. “You, of course. How else would I know who you were?”

Viktor’s mouth fell open. “Me?! But...why?”

Yuuri adjusted his glasses before turning away from the village. “Come with me and I’ll do my best to explain.”

Yuuri led him down a small offshoot of the main path, one that looked to have far less traffic than the one through the center of town. The ground sloped gently down, and soon the village and it’s lights were hidden by the ridge top, leaving them alone, in a wide open meadow, with a world of stars above them.

“Wow,” Viktor breathed. “Even in my time they aren’t this bright.”

“You’d be amazed how much ambient light affects even remote places like this. The village’s lights are designed not to travel very far. More than a mile away and you can’t even see them. It’s a special type of light we invented a few hundred years ago so we wouldn’t have to burn fuels and also wouldn’t be noticed by unwanted visitors.” He paused, sitting down in the soft grass and gazing upwards at the night sky. “Personally, I just like that it doesn’t ruin this view.”

Viktor silently agreed and sat down alongside the other man, staring up at the slowly dimming sky as dawn grew closer. Viktor was aware he should be tired, but he had so many questions and somehow sitting beside the quiet man was putting him at ease. There was just something _ familiar _about Yuuri.

“This is one of my favorite places,” Yuuri whispered. “I figured you’d have a lot of questions and it would be easiest to answer them here while the sun rises. The minute I take you to the village we’re bound to be surrounded by curious eyes. I have a feeling the elders have been waiting a long time to meet you.” He glanced at Viktor out of the corner of his eye. “They were the ones who instructed me to watch the rings tonight.”

“Why don’t you seem more surprised that I showed up here?” Viktor asked, a thousand questions swirling in his mind, but somehow all less important than understanding _ this _man sitting beside him.

Yuuri seemed to consider him for a moment. “Tell me Viktor, what do you think the gateway is?”

Viktor furrowed his brow. He’d say he was frustrated to have his question answered with more questions, but he was far too used to this method of reasoning from Yakov during his Master’s studies. 

“Well, before I was apparently hurled through time to whenever _ this _is, I thought...well I thought it was a map. Not just a map of the stars, or even a map of history, but…” He paused, feeling almost silly for what he had been thinking to himself more and more through the night. “I think it’s a treasure map.”

Yuuri beamed at him and Viktor felt his heart give a heavy thud. “You’re right, in a sense. To people like you and me, it _ is _ a treasure map; leading to the greatest treasure of all.”

“What is it?”

Yuuri grimaced. “I can’t tell you.”

“Why?!” Viktor tried to keep the moan out of his voice, his curiosity gnawing at him. 

Yuuri sighed. “The elders are very careful about what information we are given, and what we are allowed to share. I’ll try to explain the reasons behind it, but first, let me answer a few of your other questions. As far as _ when _ you are, it’s it mid 200s.”

Viktor gaped. “You mean I came back to before the dark ages?”

Yuuri nodded. “Just before them, actually. They’re in their early stages already. The library of Alexandra was finally destroyed just a year or so ago.”

Viktor gasped. Oh to have come back a bit sooner! To have seen it!

“You’ll actually name this place ‘The Second Alexandria’.”

“Wait, what? I’ll name it that? How do you know?”

Yuuri smiled, eyes sparkling. “You, of course, know about the Dark Ages. Before then human knowledge was growing more and more, but suddenly it drops off and stays suppressed for almost 800 years. Hundreds of years of knowledge lost. Now, the people of your time are far advanced from this point, but imagine where we as humans would be in your time if it had never happened? That’s my people, only we didn’t live through this dark age, we lived through the previous one.”

Viktor frowned. “You mean there was one before this?”

Yuuri nodded. “All records of it will be lost in this dark age, so your time has no knowledge of it. The civilization of then was beyond the place the world is today, but it was lost. Only one people maintained that knowledge, and that’s here, in this village. Because of that, we are advanced beyond even your time. You’re just behind us actually, maybe a decade or two away. The biggest difference is our path. Rather than weapons and money, we have been looking for ways to travel across time and space.”

“The stones,” Viktor whispered. “That’s what they’re for.”

Yuuri grinned at him. “They are. It’s extremely complicated math, and I won’t bother explaining how it works, just that it does. You stumbled upon it rather by accident, and so here you are.”

“But, you said you’re assigned to me...why?”

Yuuri seemed to pause, collecting his thoughts for a long moment before he spoke. “The dark ages are coming, and my people can’t outrun this one. There are far more people on earth now. In a little under a week’s time we will be gone, but we have to ensure our knowledge persists, and that’s where you come in.

“The stones are the gateway, but they’re also a guide. In our village is an underground chamber filled, sealed, and hidden away from man, the elements, and time; and it’s waiting to be found. By you.”

Viktor subtly pinched himself one last time. He didn’t wake up. “I’ll find it?”

“You will, but there’s just one problem, you won’t find it for another ten years when you find a piece of our language on ruin from our original home. That will help you crack the language. However, about five years from your current time there will be a flood here, and our library won’t survive. It’s a tragedy.

“That’s why I’ve been following you my whole life, making tiny adjustments here and there, pushing you forward bit by bit in the hopes that you’ll understand us just a bit sooner. You actually stumbling on a way to operate the rings was a bit unexpected, but rather useful. In retrospect, a lot of conversations I’ve had with the elders recently have started to make sense.

“But that’s neither here nor there. All that matters now is helping you understand us so you can understand our language sooner. So you’ll find our gift we’ve left you.”

Viktor thought his head might explode, or maybe he was passed out already; Lilia always did say he’d worked too hard. “So let me get this straight,” Viktor whispered as he massaged his temples, sure that he can feel his hairline receding even as he tries to wrap his mind around his current, almost unbelievable reality. “You’ve been traveling through time and making adjustments to my life so that I’ll eventually find your lost archive which contains all the knowledge of the world, not just in this time, but in the thousands of years before in which there was another dark age? All records of which will be lost in this dark age?”

“More or less,” Yuuri whispered with a soft, rather apologetic smile. “I know it’s a lot to take in, especially the part where I’ve been poking at your life for years, I’d imagine.”

“You aren’t wrong,” Viktor huffed, tossing himself back in the grass. “But what about…I don’t know, the time continuum, physics, paradoxes...or whatever? How does it all work?”

Yuuri gave out what Viktor was sure was the cutest snort he’d ever heard as he smirked in some sort of weird mesh of sympathetic and amused derision. “Viktor, you don’t think we can account for all that _ physics _ and whatever?”

“Well I don’t know!”

Yuuri smiled kindly this time. “Imagine you were to go to any other town in this time and try to explain taking a plane around the world; how do you imagine that would go over?”

Viktor hummed. “I’m not sure what they’d be more concerned about; the giant, metal, flying monster I let eat me, or the fact that I was going to hurl myself off the edge of the earth.”

“Exactly! It’s not that the people are dumb, they just haven’t evolved or been educated enough to even understand what you are suggesting. I couldn’t even begin to explain the mechanics of it to you because you just don’t have the background to understand it. It’s literally another dimension.”

Viktor sat up in interest. True, the sciences had never been his main field of interest, but he’d always considered knowledge in all its forms to be deeply fascinating. “But you do? Understand it I mean?”

Yuuri nodded. “It’s a fundamental part of our education. For me the concept of time travel is no more advanced than basic geometry. But we didn’t just come to this understanding. It took us thousands of years to reach this point.”

Viktor nodded, thinking it over. “At the current time, the prevailing theory is that we could only travel forward in time by approaching the speed of light, but never go backward.”

“It’s not a bad idea, though it is limited,” Yuuri said with a smile. “Moving forward and back is much like finding your location on a map and then simply walking there. Obviously that’s a overly simplified explanation, but it’s the best I can do. That part is easy; the hard part is dealing with the changes you make.”

“I knew it, paradoxes!’ Viktor whooped, earning him a positively adorable giggle.

“Yes, paradoxes, though their not as big of a deal as you make. I trust you have a basic understanding of Quantum theory”

“Cat in a box is both alive and dead.”

Yuuri nodded. “Exactly. Paradoxes are the same. The problem with them is you don’t know what they are, or if they are even happening. That creates a compounding effect during time travel which can lead to some unintended consequences.”

“Like deja vu?”

“Like Vesuvius.”

Viktor swallowed. “You caused that?”

Yuuri shook his head, waving him off. “No, no, nothing like that...just a small...ish, earthquake…”

“Please don’t tell me you caused Fukashima.”

“Okay I won’t.“

Viktor’s mouth fell open and Yuuri shrugged guilty. “I didn’t mean to...and believe me, it could have been much worse. The world didn’t implode or anything.”

“That was a possibility?!”

“It always is. You could have done it just by coming here now.”

Viktor stared. “Wait, what?”

Yuuri sighed. “All time travel causes paradoxes, the key to minimizing their effects is to see them and recognize them for what they are, thus stabilizing the disturbance. If you’re quick, the worst you have to deal with is some deja vu. If you mess it up, you turn time and space inside out and Minako makes your life a living hell for destroying the universe.”

“Who’s Minako? And wouldn’t you be dead if you destroyed the universe?”

“One of the elders and trust me, she’d find a way,” Yuuri said with a shudder.

Viktor nodded, seriously. “Then what paradox have I caused.”

Yuuri frowned, looking off into the distance, as if lost in thought before his eyebrows suddenly shot up. “If I had to guess, I’d say that.”

Viktor was about to question what when a sudden crack burst across the sky and great droplets of water mixed with hail fell from the sky as thunder and lightning roared in the heavens.

“That’s a paradox?!” Viktor yelled over the din, covering his head with his arms in an attempt to shield himself from the falling ice.”

“Well it sure wasn’t in the weather report this morning, and believe me, if we couldn’t accurately predict the weather we sure as hell couldn't handle time travel!”

Viktor couldn’t help be laugh. “Fancy meteorology aside, how do we make it stop?”

And suddenly Yuuri was kissing him.

Viktor felt his mind crack and sizzle as a million nerves sparked on end as his world tilted on its axis for one amazing moment as he took in the feel of Yuuri’s lips. Viktor pressed forward but Yuuri smiled against his lips, pulling back. “Surprise. You stop a paradox by surprising the audience, so to speak. Paradoxes thrive on being the most absurd and unusual thing happening at a given moment, drawing all eyes towards them. But if you break that focus for even a moment, you can stop them in their tracks.”

A beam of sunlight suddenly broke through the clouds as the torrential rains shifted suddenly to a gentle shower that sparkled in the sunlight just beginning to shine over the horizon. 

Droplets of water in Yuuri’s hair glinted and Viktor wasn’t sure he’d ever be the same. Was this now a paradox? Had the future just been changed? He had a feeling it had because he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to return to how he was before this moment.

He had a feeling he’d just fallen in love.

* * *

Much to Viktor’s surprise, Yuuri was soon dragging him through the center of what was now a bustling village. All of the villagers seemed to have been drawn out by the rain, and several of them were staring at Viktor with unvarnished excitement.

“Uncle Yuuri, Uncle Yuuri!” A group of three identical girls cried out running towards them as Yuuri led Viktor through the crowded street. They each had a different colored bow on their head. One yellow, one pink, and the third blue.

“Is that him? The one you’ve been following?” The one with the pink bow asked.

“How did he get here?” The blue bow said as she tugged on Yuuri’s pant leg.

“Was that a paradox?!” The yellow bow practically bellowed.

Yuuri looked nearly overwhelmed but suddenly all three girls were up in the air, flying towards a very put out looking woman who seemed to be using something that was either a tractor beam or a fishing rod to pull the girls to her side. “How many times do I have to tell you not to run off! And how do you know about Viktor or paradoxes? Have you been sneaking Mommy’s logbook again?”

“But Yuuri’s fan club needs updates!” Blue ribbon whined, her sisters chiming in as Yuuri turned a deep shade of red.

“Fan club?” Viktor asked, his head tipping to the side in amusement. How did one sign up for such a thing and why wasn’t he a member? Sure, he’d only known Yuuri a few hours, but still; this seemed like a perfectly logical necessity. 

“Ignore them,” Yuuri moaned.

“Of course there is!” To Viktor’s surprise, it was the mother who answered. “Yuuri’s always been the best at what he does. We are all capable of using the gateway, but Yuuri’s the only approved traveler right now, _ and _ his assignment is the most important and final one we’ll achieve in this place. He’s famous around here!”

“There was also that hurricane,” Pink bow said. 

“And the stock market crash” Yellow bow smirked.

“Stop stop stop!” Yuuri yelled, rushing forward, frantically trying to cover four mouths at once, and when that failed, he grabbed Viktor’s arm and started power walking away, dragging the laughing Viktor behind him.

“Wait!” Viktor called back to the family. “What are your names!”

“Yuuko!” The woman called back. “And my girls, Axel, Lutz, and Loop!”

“Those are weird names!” Viktor shouted as Yuuri whipped him around a corner and out of sight, the girls’ laughter following them as they slipped away.

“Aw, but Yuuri, they were fun! I wanted to hear more about your fan club!”

Yuuri suddenly stopped, twirling on his heel and bopped Viktor on the nose.

“Ow!”

“No fan club talk!” Yuuri admonished, though his cheeks were still a lovely shade of rose. “We’re going to see the elders. If you want more information, you’ll have to impress them.”

Viktor straightened up, brushing off his shirt front. “No problem, I have always been good at charming donors out of their pocketbooks. A couple of elders should be no problem.”

“Yeah...right,” Yuuri muttered as he led the way impatiently towards the large building at the far end of town. Viktor recognized the way the path curved along the ridge and widened as it left the village center, ending at the impressive structure ahead. He and Lilia had called it the meeting hall and it had been impressive enough as just the remnants of the long lost building, but it was even more so standing.

The shape and size reminded Viktor of the Iroquois longhouses, while the materials forming the walls were a mix of Yurok plank houses and the Pawnee earth lodges. The slatted wooden building seemed to almost merge with the ground, concealing the large building from a distance. Lilia had always wondered how such a large building hadn’t drawn more attention. The foundation had suggested such a large building that, especially with its hilltop location, seemed impossible to hide; but now it made sense. The building, large as it was, was just a mound of dirt to any who didn’t know what stood before them.

Yuuri wasted no time, dancing up the set of stairs leading up to the door and pushing Viktor through it before he even had time to think about composing himself for what lay ahead.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, the room lit with only a few low glowing lights which reminded him of candles, though there were no flames or warmth spreading from the glow.

“Good Morning, Viktor,” a kind-looking woman greeted as Yuuri shut the door behind them. Viktor had to blink a few times to bring the room into focus and was greeted with a smiling face that was noticeably similar to Yuuri’s own.

“This is my mother, Hiroko,” Yuuri introduced softly.

Hiroko nodded and led Viktor forward towards a large dais positioned along the far wall where eight others sat, watching him.

“About time you showed up,” a willowy looking woman admonished. “I was starting to worry we messed up the timeline _ again _.”

“Oh, hush, Minako-senpai,” Hiroko chided with a soft laugh. “He got here, and that’s all that matters.”

“Excuse me,” Viktor piped up as his eyes roved over the people before him, “but are you the elders?” 

He had been expecting several old and wizened people; but the collection before him was as varied in ages as a family restaurant on a Saturday afternoon. On one end was a man who looked to be about a hundred and fifty years old, but in the center was a small girl with vibrant blue eyes who could not have been more than ten.

Several of the elders chuckled and Yuuri cleared his throat. “Um, Viktor. We’re time travelers. Elders is a term of respect we use for the most knowledgeable of our people, no matter what time they’re from. 

“We make it a point,” a man who looked to be in his forties said, “to travel to the most important times in our history and discuss matters as a group. All of our members have spent their lives collecting the knowledge of our history and sharing and adjusting it as necessary to achieve our goals.”

“To find your treasure?” Viktor asked.

The child elder grinned up at him – there was something almost hauntingly familiar in her expression. “Exactly. As long as we’ve had this ability, we’ve been searching the future to see what becomes of our people and the world as a whole. Your time is at a precipice, and we’ve seen what’s to come if something drastic is not done.”

Viktor grimaced. “You mean like we destroy ourselves?”

Minako studied him. “More like a third Dark Age. Yes, it will be predicated by your people nearly destroying themselves, and the planet, but none of what is physically lost will compare to the knowledge that will disappear, never to be uncovered again. 

“We alone still possess the knowledge of the first generation, as we call it. That knowledge, all of it, is about to be lost again, for good this time.”

“But we have taken measures to protect it,” The ancient man piped up, his eyes focused and sharp. 

Hiroko touched his arm, smiling up at him. “We’ve left our knowledge for you to find. We wanted to wait, to let you find it on your own, but it took too long.”

Minako stood, her statuesque form commanding as she stepped down to look Viktor in the eye. “Our people will disappear at the end of the week, and we must entrust you to find our gift for the future so that we can carry on. You have five days, Viktor; five days to learn all you can about our people so that you can save what we have left you and avoid the dire future we see for the world.”

Viktor stared at them, mind whirling. _ Five days? _To learn enough to understand a culture that was not only ancient, but also more complicated than any Viktor had yet to come across? “Just how am I supposed to do that?”

“By reading the stones,” Yuuri whispered, looking up at them. “I’ve seen it. I’ve seen you crack the writings. You have all the knowledge and abilities you need to do it, but in every timeline you take too long. We need you to understand us so that you can solve it now – or I guess I should say – in this summer while you and Lilia are at the site.”

An elderly woman that hadn't yet spoke stood carefully, her body shaking as she did. Yuuri hurried forward and helped the woman down the steps as she approached Viktor. When she looked up, her eyes were sparkling with some sort of hidden secret. 

“I’ve been waiting for this day for a long, long time, Viktor. We all have. It’s the end for many of us, and just the beginning for you.”

And without a word, she faded away.

“What?!” Viktor gasped, jumping back in shock.

Yuuri made a soothing sound, taking hold of his arm as Viktor looked up to see the other elders smiling at him, as one by one they disappeared, until only Minako and Hiroko remained.

“Our elders come from all over time, Viktor,” Yuuri said softly. “And we don’t need the stones to move through it.”

Minako stepped forward and patted his shoulder. “Walk with me,” she commanded, and Viktor scrambled to keep up as Yuuri followed along behind them with Hiroko.

“Time travel is an exercise of the mind. Much as you would use a calculator to help you solve complex math, the stones act as an aid in time travel. The elders are those of us who don’t need the stones to travel.”

“So you could just disappear right now?” Viktor asked.

Minako grinned and faded away, only to appear moments later a few feet away holding a cup of ice cream from one of Viktor’s favorite shops near his university. His mouth fell open comically as he stared at her, taking a bite of her still frozen treat.

“Yuuri can do it too,” she said with a smirk. “It would be rather hard for him to follow you if he couldn’t.”

Viktor whipped around, looking at Yuuri who just shrugged. “I don’t exactly advertise it to others,” he said with a soft blush.

“Yuuri would be an elder too if he wasn’t busy working with you,” Hiroko said in a bright, cheery voice. “These things do run in families, after all.” 

They were nearing the village once more, and Viktor couldn’t help but notice the pattern that seemed to follow all of the activity. 

They were leaving.

Men and women were collecting their things, packing them away in crates, and setting them to the side, as if waiting for a truck to pull up and haul the items away. A few others were setting to work on the lights and structures, chipping away at the things that stood out as distinctly not from this time.

“You were the sign that it was time,” Minako said softly. “Everyone here knows that the end is coming for our time, and that you are the key. They’ve been waiting for you their whole lives.”

“They don’t know why, but they know you are important to us,” Hiroko agreed in a soft voice, linking her arm with his and moving him along the street. 

Minako sighed. “Given the nature of what we’re doing, none of them know what’s going to happen; even Yuuri doesn’t know. We had to keep these secrets even from him, one of the most talented of us, just to protect the future. I cannot stress enough how desperately important you are, both of you, to us all.”

Viktor could help but glance back at Yuuri who was blushing rather vibrantly.

“I’m sorry we can’t tell you more, Viktor,” Minako said with a weary sigh. “We need you to get to work. Study the stones, learn from us. Take what you need to go back to your time and discover the things we’ve left for you before we run out of time. Yuuri will help you, but he knows he can’t give you the answers you seek. We tried that once and it backfired spectacularly.”

“How so?” Viktor couldn’t help but ask, curiously. 

“World War 4,” Yuuri muttered, and Viktor decided he really didn’t want to know.

“Will you tell me more about what it is I’m looking for?”

Minako studied him, glancing over at Hiroko who was tilting her head in a kind sort of expression, making Minako sigh. “If we’re satisfied with your progress, then yes.”

“How will I know I’m on the right track? Do I have to write a paper or something explaining my conclusions about the writings on the stones?”

Minako burst out laughing, while Hiroko giggled, patting his arm kindly. “No no, Vicchan. Just follow your heart and let your curiosity guide you. We’ll let you know when you’re beginning to truly understand. Don’t worry; we’ve seen all this before, and I know you’ll find the answers to questions you didn’t even know you’ve asked.”

With that, Hiroko and Minako turned away, leaving Yuuri and Viktor alone. Yuuri seemed to be fidgeting nervously beside him. “Do you want to get some sleep before you get to work?” He asked in a soft voice.

Viktor looked down, studying the beautiful, complex man beside him. A part of him knew he should sleep, but another, more ardent voice, had him longing to reach out and touch this curious man before him.

Well, Hiroko did say to follow his heart.

“No,” he whispered, taking Yuuri’s hand in his own, smiling as Yuuri glanced up at him in surprise as Viktor leaned down and pressed their lips together for a second time, drawing a gasp from Yuuri as he did. “Let’s get to work; after all, I need to keep surprising you.”

“This isn’t a paradox,” Yuuri said with a smile.

And Viktor tilted his head, tapping his lips with one of his long fingers. “Isn’t it though?”

Yuuri blushed, nodding as he spoke. “I suppose it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you're all enjoying this little trip through time! Please be sure to leave a comment and/or kudos because they make me happy. ;)
> 
> Next week: Chapter 3 - Uncoding the Stars


	3. Uncoding the Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Viktor's likely to go bald at this rate. The stones and the language are the most confusing puzzle he's yet encountered; well, maybe second most, because Yuuri is even more confusing.
> 
> Maybe it's time for a leap of faith...

Understanding dead languages had always been more of an art than a science in Viktor’s experience, and this one was proving that tenfold. At Yuuri’s suggestion, they’d brought a few pallets down to the stones so when Viktor’s obsession could no longer keep him upright he didn’t need to trek back up the hill to reach a bed. 

Yuuri scarcely left his side, a quiet companion who neither confirmed nor denied his theories, and yet somehow seemed to draw more and more of his attention as the first day bled into the second and day two began to fade away. Two days gone and all Viktor had gained from staring at the stones was a headache and far too little sleep.

He’d tried going through town and finding more of the language, or perhaps hear it being spoken, but every language the people seemed to speak was one right out of the modern era! He’d even caught the triplets speaking in pig Latin that morning! How was he supposed to learn anything like this?

Honestly, the most productive moments of his time here had been when he and Yuuri had walked back to the village in silence to get some food. It was there that Yuuri’s quiet nature had seemed to let out glimpses of the curiously complex man that had kissed him within an hour of first meeting to stop a paradox. 

Yuuri was brilliant, that much was plain to see, but the way he came closer and then pulled away was as infuriating as the very language Viktor was trying to decode.

Viktor moaned to himself as he tugged his hair in frustration. He was going to go bald at this rate.

“Once again I’m going to mention that I think this would go a lot faster if I knew  _ what _ I was looking for!” 

Yuuri sighed, watching him from just outside the circle where he was sketching on a pad of paper that had a well-worn look to it, making Viktor think that Yuuri had been adding and removing pages to the tome for the better part of a decade.

“Minako told me that I broke down and told you once and it somehow ripped a hole in the universe.”

“Seriously?” Viktor said skeptically, raising a critical eye towards the dark-haired man, sure it was a joke.

Yuuri wasn’t smiling.

“Just assume that anything terrible that can happen, has happened. Multiple times. Our rules are strict, but it’s for good reason.”

Viktor sighed, leaning back against one of the stone tablets. “I’m just  _ missing _ something key here. I can see hints of dozens of languages throughout history, but there’s no sense to it. No structure, no consistency. How am I even supposed to decipher something I can’t even begin to fundamentally understand?”

Yuuri worried his lip, looking at Viktor in a way that made Viktor feel like he was being evaluated, albeit, nervously.

“Ok,” Yuuri whispered, hopping up and coming over towards the center of the circle. “Ok. I haven’t been told specifically not to tell you this, and I’m pretty sure Minako would just appear from the past and smack me if I wasn’t supposed to, so let me see if I can help you understand.” He paused as if waiting for Minako to actually just appear out of the sky and drop kick him.

After a few moments, Yuuri took a breath. “So as I’ve explained, we think in four dimensions. This circle is all about time and its effects on my people. It tells cautionary tales of the past, as well as the future. Every major event in our history is listed here, from this one, over here,” he paused pointing at a stone seemingly at random to Viktor’s eyes, but not to Yuuri’s apparently. “All of these stones are about 2000 years old, but that one talks about events from before ancient Egypt. It talks about the times before the first Dark Age.”

“So you’re saying your people have been able to time travel for 2000 years?” Viktor asked, curious.

“Focus, Nikiforov!” Yuuri snapped and Viktor had to hide his smile. He rather liked feisty Yuuri. “Most of these stones are about events before anyone in this village was born, but that one, as I’ve told you, is about this very week. And the one next to it is about when you will discover the key to our language. The one next to it takes place after that, but I can’t tell you what it says because I  _ can’t  _ read it.”

“Wait, what? You can’t read your own language?” Viktor asked, perplexed.

“I can, but only up until  _ your _ stone. We’re people of  _ time _ Viktor…”

Viktor blinked, understanding fully that Yuuri was trying to explain something very important to him without coming right out and saying it. “I’m guessing you can’t tell me any more than that?”

Yuuri shook his head. “This is as far as I can go.”

Viktor sighed but looked at the stones with a new eye. “Can I ask a question?”

“You can, though I may not answer.”

It was to be expected, really. “So say we were back in the time of say, this stone.” Viktor pointed to one of the stones between the one in the current time and the first. “Would the people of that time be able to read the stone from now?”

Yuuri smiled. “I can’t say.”

Viktor grinned, nodding. “So I’m on the right track. So that would mean this alphabet, no, language as a whole shifts and changes over time. It’s not surprising as all languages do, but this one is shifting over time in a single representation. For people like me who only understand the present, our language stays static over short periods of time, say the carving of this stone. But if you were a person who could travel through time…”

He trailed off, his mental path solidifying into a thousand splintering divergences as he tried to connect his racing thoughts to a practical understanding. If he was right, that would mean that the language on these stones was evolving over time so that the people of the time just before it could understand. That would keep any one person from poking too far into the future, possibly breaking everything. Only a few, people like Minako could probably read the whole thing, which is why  _ she _ controlled what Yuuri could tell him. She controlled what Yuuri could...know?

“You know what happens at the end of this week, don’t you?”

He turned towards Yuuri who was worrying his lip silently. He’d seen the signs the day before, the signs of people moving on; but no one had come to the stones, nor had he seen anything that looked like a mode of transportation to carry the people, and their belongings, somewhere else.

They were leaving, but they weren’t going anywhere.

“I do,” Yuuri said softly.

“But what about after?”

Yuuri blinked but shook his head. “I don’t know anything.”

“And yet there is...well, for lack of a better word,  _ history _ , right here. There are stones beyond the one where I discover whatever it is these stones are telling me to find. So either that future has nothing to do with your people, or you aren’t allowed to know more than that. You could all find out, but you keep yourselves ignorant. Why?”

Yuuri looked at him for a long moment before seeming to steel himself. “So we don’t destroy the future.”

“Whose future?”

Yuuri shrugged. “Who knows?”

And then it hit Viktor. “Yuuri, what will happen to you at the end of this week? You said the dark ages are coming, that your village won’t survive. What about you, your people? Why are there no more stones for almost 2000 years?!”

Tears dripped down Yuuri’s cheeks as he shook his head. “I don’t...I can’t tell you. There’s a plan, I know there is, but I don’t know all the details. I can’t tell you what is going to happen beyond sending you home so that you can find us again. I know more about your life honestly than I do my own.”

Viktor shook his head in disbelief. “Yuuri, in all the time you spent watching me, did you ever stop and just  _ live _ .”

Yuuri let out a sob, shaking his head before he took off running, and Viktor, powerless to do anything else, followed him.

“Yuuri wait! Please! Don’t leave me alone.”

“But I have to, Viktor! You’re leaving in three days! Everything’s over in three days! What’s even the point?”

Viktor was proud that he kept up with Yuuri on the steep slope, though his lungs and muscles burned from the effort. “The point is we live! If our whole lives are the stones, then what’s the point of that? Why would I really care about discovering the secrets of this place? I mean sure, I’d still do it, you all say it’s important, and I have to dedicate my life to solving this. That I have to approach this with single-minded obsession, and yeah, that definitely sounds like me, but then I met you.

“Why am I obsessed with understanding those stones now? After meeting  _ you _ ? And why did the elders look at me like...like I’m family?!”

Yuuri came to a sudden stop. They were back in the field, their chests heaving.

“I don’t know,” Yuuri whispered, before whirling around, his voice stronger and filled with a weary sort of desperation. “I first time traveled when I was five years old. One minute I was here and the next I was in a park next to you. My whole life has revolved around you and I don’t know why. I fell in love with you when I was twelve and I never thought I’d actually meet you and then you came  _ here _ !”

Yuuri paced in front of him, face twisting as he struggled to put his thoughts to words, frustration clear in his features. “You weren’t supposed to come here — except that you did! My whole village knew you were coming but me! You heard Minako and my mother, I should be an elder, I should know more than anyone, but they keep me in the dark because somehow I am the only one that can get you to understand everything and I don’t know why. I don’t know why I’m special and what it is about you and why I’m in love with you when I can  _ never _ be with you!”

“Maybe because I’m in love with you too!” Viktor shouted, the words echoing around them as they stared at one another.

“ _ What?”  _ Yuuri whispered.

“I think… I think I’m in love with you…” Viktor gasped, sinking down to the ground. “I barely know you, and yet I feel like you’re a part of me. The moment I first saw you, the moment we first kissed. It was like my whole world crashed down and reformed all in a second. Like every step had been leading me towards you and I didn’t know why. What is even going on?”

Yuuri sank down next to him, sighing. “I don’t know. My whole life has been you and the stones; making tiny adjustments to the text on  _ that  _ stone again and again so that you would understand us. Find us. But as much as Minako, the elders, and my family kept telling me to relax and let myself live a little, I just couldn’t. I couldn’t live not knowing what was coming  _ next _ .”

“Yuuri, you do realize that’s how most people live, right?”

Yuuri snorted a little, and Viktor couldn’t help himself as he placed an arm around the other man’s shoulder and pulled him close.

“Yakov has a kid he looks after; Yuri Plisetsky, though I suppose you probably know that. His grandfather asked Yakov to look after him after he tested out of every school he went to within months. He’s a genius and a bit of an asshole, but he’d love this. I can sort of understand why he would be involved in helping me find this place, especially ten years from now since he’s only fifteen now. He’s like a kid brother to me.” 

Viktor looked up at the stars before he continued. “My whole life I’ve felt like there was more. Like I was being watched; like the universe was waiting for me to make my move. I never told anyone until I met Yuri. It just felt natural to confide in him. He says I’m a narcissist, but at the same time he always lets me bounce ideas off him as to  _ why _ I feel it more so at certain times.” He turned and stared into Yuuri’s eyes.

“It was you, wasn’t it? Always watching me, always waiting.”

“Me and the elders,” Yuuri said with a soft sigh. “Did you know they look different every time I see them? Humans see time as a linear construct, but for us, it’s a bit more like solving a Rubik cube. Being an elder is not just about being able to travel at will, but to be able to handle the complexities of experiencing time in such a roundabout way. Most of our people can’t even grasp that yet.”

“So it’s possible I can remember the stone being different?”

Yuuri blinked at him. “Possible, yes...but likely?”

“That’s why I touched the stones two nights ago. I was staring at it and I could have sworn the images I saw were different. That there was something new there that hadn’t been there before. A small part of me thought I was losing my mind.”

“That’s what time travel feels like some days, to be honest.” Yuuri paused for a moment and looked up at him. “Did you know there are moments of your life I can’t witness?”

“What?” Viktor asked in surprise.

Yuuri nodded. “I don’t know why I can’t. For example, I had no idea you’d end up here. I’ve seen you unlock the stones, but I’ve never seen what happens next. I never see the day you and Lilia find...them.”

“What could prevent you from going there?”

“Another paradox of some sort. Minako taught me that it can happen. There are places all of us can’t go, but the elders, working as a team, seem to know most everything. You probably noticed that some of them didn’t talk; it’s because they were remembering the meeting. Memorizing everything that was said. They all take turns doing that, keeping track of the future and the past. Observing but not interacting. My best guess is that there are moments in your life that if I witnessed them it would ruin everything, so I have to rely on Minako and my mother to assure me that everything went right.”

Viktor pondered this for a moment. “So everything happening now, you’ve never seen?” Yuuri nodded. “So is that why you’ve been so quiet and nervous?”

Yuuri fidgeted a bit but nodded. “I’m not used to uncertainty. It’s scary for me.”

“So why not embrace it?”

Yuuri blinked owlishly up at him. “What do you mean?”

Viktor took a breath, steeling himself for the hurt he knew he was inviting in. “So why don’t we jump? Why don’t we embrace whatever  _ this  _ is between us, even if just for three more days? We only have so much time, so why don’t we make the most of it?”

“But the stones!” Yuuri protested, eyes wide.

“Let’s face it, Yuuri, there’s nothing more I’m going to discover right now. I’ve all but memorized the carvings; until I get back to my own time where I can access my research and bounce ideas off Lilia, Yakov, and apparently, Yuri Plisetsky, I’m really not going to get anywhere. Besides, it’s like you’ve said. If we’re making a huge mistake, Minako’s likely to appear and slap us. So why not take a chance at whatever...this is?”

Yuuri’s eyes shimmered. “But you leave in three days...after that, then what?”

“Then,” Viktor whispered, trailing a hand over Yuuri’s jawline, slowly cupping his face. “Then I leave a part of myself here, with you.” And with more courage than he knew he had, he leaned in and pressed their lips together. 

For a moment Yuuri sat frozen, but then, as if he’d finally made up his mind, he surged forward, kissing Viktor with all his strength, clambering into Viktor’s lap and straddling his legs as he deepened the kiss. Viktor eagerly joined him; his arms encircling Yuuri and clinging to him, pulling him tight to his chest as he slid his tongue into Yuuri’s mouth, earning him a soft, delicate moan that had his insides churning with desire.

“I love you, Yuuri.” He whispered. “I know I barely know you, but I do. I feel like I have my whole life, even if I’ve only just met you.”

Yuuri smiled, kissing him softly. “Time isn’t a straight line, and I love you too.”

* * *

From across the meadow, hidden in a copse of trees, Hiroko giggled, elbowing Minako’s side. “See! I told you it would all work out. Those two are destined for each other! Oh I can’t wait to make Katsudon for Vicchan, and show him our–“

Minako made a clicking sound, hissing against her teeth, cutting Hiroko off. “Calm down, it’s not certain yet.”

Hiroko scoffed. “It’s all but! You can see as clear as I can that he’s already smitten. It’s just up to our Yuuri now!”

Minako frowned, brow furrowing. “It’s not that I doubt him, it’s just all balanced on a single point. I think we need to tip the scales.”

Hiroko stared up at her senpai. It had long since been a bit of a mystery how Minako maintained her youthful looks at her age, but the secret almost no one knew, was that Minako had spirited herself forward a few months at a time throughout her life. The woman should have been white-haired and wrinkled, but thanks to short, barely noticeable jumps, she looked like a goddess of youth.

The elders had covered for Minako’s missing time, simply explaining that she was away working, but Hiroko, as another such elder, knew the truth. Minako had given up large portions of her life so she could be here for Yuuri when he’d need her most.

“Well, if that’s all you’re worried about, then why don’t we just give Vicchan a little more?”

Minako quirked an eyebrow. “Are you suggesting we pimp out your son?”

Hiroko had to stifle the hearty laugh into her sleeve, lest she disrupt the two lovers they were ‘not-spying’ on. “Of course not! Though, I am sure they will get there in time on their own. No, I mean we push Viktor’s ‘mistress’ to the forefront.”

Minako sighed, massaging her forehead. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

“Oh come now, what’s the harm? We’ll still keep the location secret, but a peek inside might be the last push he needs to understand. Besides, if we aren’t supposed to show Vicchan the library, you know Airi-chan will just appear and slap us!”

Minako couldn’t help but smirk as she nodded. “You’re right. That little spitfire isn’t about to let us screw up her future.”

Hiroko smiled, turning away from where her son was busy kissing his destined love. “It’s almost time; I can’t wait for what comes next.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Next Week: The Library of Time
> 
> Note: I've updated the tags slightly on the advice of my betas in preparation for the next few chapters.


	4. The Library of Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Minako decides to give Viktor one last push and the truth is revealed...

Viktor hated surprises. At least the ones that involved a blindfold and walking to an unknown location under the direction of Minako who he wasn’t entirely sure he trusted. There was just something about her that made him think she had something up her sleeve. 

Also, no one had any right to look that good at her age, and drink as much as she did.

After he and Yuuri had kissed each other so much their lips had begun to grow numb, they’d walked back to the village, hand-in-hand, only to get swept up into what could only be described as a party, with Minako and Hiroko plying them both with drinks.

He also had a chance to meet Yuuri’s father who was apparently not an elder, but an excellent drinker. The night had ended with most of the town passed out on the floor, and Minako and Toshiya dancing on the tables.

Yuuri had been bright red with embarrassment for his family, and had refused more than a single drink, afraid he would end up joining them. Viktor had not so secretly tried to convince him otherwise, but had been shut down each time with an all too tempting kiss.

Yet somehow, even after all that; Minako had dragged him from his bed first thing in the morning, strapping a blindfold over his eyes, and led him in what he was quite sure were circles. He couldn’t even begin to guess where they’d gone, and his only solace was Yuuri occasionally muttering at his side about unnecessary precautions and “couldn’t this have waited until a more reasonable hour?”

“No,” Minako had said plainly. “The hangover works in our favor.”

That was the moment Viktor _ knew _the party had been a set-up and Minako was a demon.

“Where are you taking me?” He tried asking once more as he noticed their steps had been leading them down for quite some time. Surely they weren’t taking him to the rings and sending him back?

“I’ve decided you need another push,” Minako answered, surprising Viktor. “I think if I _ show _you just what’s at stake, it might motivate you further.”

Viktor wasn’t sure he needed further motivation beyond that Yuuri wanted him to find whatever it was the stones were telling him about, and Viktor was having a hard time accepting that he had just over two days left with the man he was sure was the great love of his life. He felt a bit like Rose Dawson waiting on a floating door, trying not to let go.

After what must have been the hundredth wrong turn, he heard Yuuri say something in a language he didn’t understand, but the intention behind the words was clear: surprise.

“I decided to show him _ what _ it is, if not _ where _,” Minako answered.

“Really?” Yuuri asked.

“What?” Viktor asked, unable to stop himself from reaching out his arm in search of some clue as if he could feel what he was supposed to be seeing.

Suddenly the cloth was pulled from his eyes; he blinked, unsure of what he should be seeing in the gloom of...wherever they were.

“Here,” Yuuri whispered softly, moving Viktor’s hand until he touched something cool and smooth.

Suddenly lights began to glow all around him and throughout the room before him. The _ rooms. _The cavern.

His jaw fell open as he slowly took in the vast space, stretching deeper than his eyes could fathom, with rows and rows of massive cases, their shelves sealed with some sort of clear glass through which he could just make out the contents - scrolls.

“It’s...a library…” he whispered, reverently.

“All hermetically sealed,” Minako confirmed. “The scrolls have been painstakingly copied from those in Alexandria, as well as several other archives throughout time that have been lost before. The shelves all have descriptions of their contents, as well as instructions for opening them safely. They’ll be preserved perfectly in your time, but the flood will damage the foundations. Even with all our technology we can’t deny the forces of nature. The good news is that each shelf is powered and can be moved individually. That’s all written on them, so don’t worry about that. There’s also an elevator system at the far end. It’s all automated, so all you need to do is move them out and transport them to a safe location and it will all be safe. We’ve even added a warning about the flood so you’ll have all the justification you need to move everything quickly.”

Viktor was fairly sure his soul had left his body as he began floating among the shelves, unable to look away from the thousands, maybe millions, of scrolls just waiting for him to reach out and touch. It was enough to make anyone feel small and rather insignificant.

“But if you can do all this, why do you need me?”

Yuuri and Minako shared a look, a sort of silent conversation passing between them, one Yuuri seemed to be winning as Minako finally sighed and shrugged her shoulders.

“Viktor, I told you we can’t outrun time anymore and I meant it. This place has the history of the ages, but also the knowledge to save the future; to help your time avoid the mistakes of the past and our own. No society can survive forever, not even ours, and it’s time for us to disappear.”

“Disappear…” Viktor whispered. “What do you mean?”

Yuuri bit his lip, his eyes shining as he weighed his words on his tongue. “Viktor, within the hour of your return, Lilia will approach you and tell you that they figured out how the village was destroyed. You’ll chide her for being a hypocrite, working all night after she told you not to. You’ll walk back to the village together and she’ll show you. Most of the houses are empty, but the elder hall was filled with sleeping people.”

“What?!” Viktor asked, staring between the two time travelers before him, willing one of them to say something to assure him that this wasn’t going where he thought it was.

“The night after you leave, we’ll hold a massive party in the hall. Most of the village knows that your presence here means we’ve successfully passed our knowledge to the future, but what they don’t know, is why we won’t be able to give it to you. Most think we’ll be packing up and leaving, but we never will.”

“Please no,” Viktor whispered.

Yuuri nodded, tears glistening in his eyes. “Tomorrow night, in the south, you will see the glowing light of torches on the horizon. That’s the army coming to destroy us. They mostly think we’re witches of some sort, rather than what we actually are, but the result is the same. We are other, and thus we must be destroyed. We’ve tried running, disappearing, moving forward in time; but the result is always the same. Destruction. This is the cleanest, simplest way to...let time proceed.”

Viktor shook his head vigorously. “No! I can’t...this _ can’t _be how it is! You’re just going to what? Drink the kool-aid?!”

Yuuri glanced at Minako who was sitting on a crate, silently watching, making Viktor remember what Yuuri said about the elders observing. She nodded and Yuuri turned back to him, steeling himself. 

“They’ll burn the town down. A small group of us will take a medicine that will turn off our pain receptors, while the rest will take a powerful sleeping drug. They’ll fall asleep, bellies full, and smiles on their lips and...never wake up.

“Those of us who stay awake will make sure to react just enough to fool the soldiers into thinking nothing is strange. We’ll fight, and they’ll kill us, and toss our bodies back into the burning building. It will be painless for all, if that’s any consolation.”

Viktor just kept shaking his head, more and more horrified with every word. “No! What about all the innocent people? Your mother, the triplets, you?!”

Yuuri had tears openly falling down his cheeks as he slowly raised a hand to his face and removed his glasses. With shaking fingers he touched the panel on one of the shelves and set his glasses inside, before sealing the unit once more. “I’ll close my eyes and dream of seeing you again,” he whispered.

“Yuuri…” Viktor whispered hopelessly, his own voice alerting him to the tears that were now falling down his own cheeks. Grasping for something, anything to say he whispered. “Don’t you need those?”

Yuuri shook his head, lifting the blindfold to Viktor’s eyes once more. “I can see you just fine close up, and that’s all I need.”

* * *

Viktor had no idea if they walked him down a dozen wrong turns on the way back to the village, his mind so lost in thought as they moved, tears staining the cloth covering his eyes. When it was removed, he found himself inside a small house, one he could tell, just from the inside, was the building closest to the ring.

“This is my home,” Yuuri said softly. “I’m the only one with my own place.”

Viktor nodded slowly mind too clouded with grief at the impending loss he’d only just learned about. The tears had stopped, but only because his eyes had seemed to have died in his skull, his emotions so raw and painful that he couldn’t even process his own thoughts. “I was wondering how people got any privacy for...you know...making triplets.”

Yuuri chuckled sadly, reaching up to stroke Viktor’s cheek with a damp rag, cleaning up the evidence of Viktor’s messy, silent cry. “We have some tents we normally set-up for families wanting privacy, but generally speaking our people are very open about things like sex. It’s something normal here, and as long as you don’t disturb anyone’s sleep with your activities, no one really minds. Though it is a little uncomfortable the first time you walk in on your parents or your best friends.”

Yuuri led him over to what looked like a futon on the floor, but that was incredibly squishy and supportive as he sat on it, Yuuri joining him. “Did you know,” Yuuri said softly as he intertwined their fingers together, “that I have a sister?”

“Really?” Viktor asked, curiously.

Yuuri nodded. “She’s in charge of securing the library and has been sleeping down there for weeks. You walked right past her as we walked in, but for whatever reason, Minako doesn’t want you to meet her.”

“Can she time travel too?”

Yuuri nodded. “While I’ve followed you, she’s been watching the library. I’m guessing you’ve met her in your time which is the reason for all the secrecy. She is a bit bummed about it though. She wanted to tease you.”

Viktor chuckled softly, though even he couldn’t detect any true humor in the sound. “Why?”

Yuuri sighed, not needing any explanation to understand that Viktor had changed topics. “If we run, they chase us down and it’s...messier. If we move forward in time, we break things. World War 2 will look like a small skirmish in comparison to what happens if we appear in the 20s. There just is simply no place for us in time anymore.”

“But I _ just _found you,” Viktor pleaded.

Yuuri swallowed thickly. “I know. I told you, I’ve spent my life watching you, loving you. To finally have you only to have to say goodbye so soon...it’s killing me. It’s been killing me since the moment you arrived here.”

Viktor nodded, tears coming once more. “I thought, maybe, that whenever I found it, the library, I would find the secret to finding you once more. At least, I hoped that was what it was. Even if it meant leaving my time for good and joining you in the Middle Ages, I’d do it with joy. But now...knowing all I’m doing is looking for proof that you lived-“ He broke off with a sob as Yuuri gathered him into his arms, kissing his cheeks, and slowly moving towards his lips until they were both kissing the other, tears flavoring their lips.

“Two nights left,” Yuuri whispered, and Viktor understood. If they only had two nights, he was going to make the most of them. Love enough to last a lifetime, kiss enough to burn the feeling into his skin, whisper enough sweet nothings to fill his nights until the day he too closed his eyes for one last time.

“I love you,” Viktor whispered. It was too hard and too fast, but he knew he’d fall again and again. Gladly rip open his heart, again and again, only to have it destroyed again. It was all worth it for just two more nights with Yuuri. With his love, in this time, before it was gone forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments are appreciated greatly - I read them all even if I'm bad at replying.
> 
> Next week: The End of Time


	5. The End of Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time to go home and say goodbye...

For the next two days, neither was willing to leave the other’s side. Rather than study the stones, Viktor studied Yuuri’s face, the planes of his chest, and taste of his skin, burning each and every surface into his mind. Yuuri, for his part, seemed to be embracing a lifetime of emotion with every kiss and touch, barely willing to stop for even the most basic of necessities.

There wasn’t enough time. Not nearly enough time. Had Viktor had several centuries it wouldn’t have been enough time.

It was all too hard and too fast, but for the first time in his life, Viktor felt like he’d found the thing he’d been missing without ever knowing it.

“Will I ever see you again?” He asked softly. The sky was already beginning to grey and Viktor cursed the morning’s arrival for the thousandth time. The morning would bring his departure and he was dreading it; wishing with all his heart he knew a way to stop time.

Yuuri hummed softly, his fingers lightly trailing along Viktor’s spine. “Once, when I was eleven I was watching you in a library. I was distracted by something that shouldn’t have been there and all of a sudden I ran straight into you. I could see the recognition in your eyes and I was so surprised I ran and hid in a bathroom to return to my time before you could really get a good look at me.” He paused, his eyes closed as he seemed to be remembering.

“You were older than now, you had glasses and you’d grown your hair out again; not as long as it was as a teenager, but it was pulled back in a small knot at the base of your neck. You had a short beard too.” He bit his lip. “I didn’t think much of it then — I was very taken with the teenage version of you, to be honest — but now, well, it was very sexy.”

His cheeks blushed bright red and Viktor could do nothing more than kiss him for several long minutes, wishing to burn this moment into his memory. “I can’t wait,” Viktor whispered, pausing, mouth slipping into a frown. “I don’t know if I’ll be relieved, seeing you, or heartbroken knowing it’s the last time.”

Yuuri just nodded, before pressing their lips together once more in a searing kiss that pulled Viktor out of the future and back to the present.

Until it was time.

As the sun’s first beams broke the horizon, Yuuri led Viktor away from the village, along the ridgeline, and back to the stones. Yuuri studied the horizon as they walked, his eyes scanning the treeline until he stopped. “You can just see them there,” he whispered, pointing towards the west where the sun’s light had not yet illuminated.

Torchlights. Dozens of them.

“Why?” Viktor cried in an anguished whisper.

Yuuri sighed in a tired sort of way. “We mostly keep to ourselves out here; but our thirst for knowledge is what spelled our downfall. The elders saw long before I was born that this would happen and made a choice. It’s why the stones were constructed; why the library was built. If this was the cost for gaining and preserving the knowledge of the ages, it was a price we were willing to pay.”

Viktor felt tears fall down his cheeks as he looked out at the steadily moving lights. Yuuri’s people were so advanced, they should be able to defend themselves! But he knew, without even voicing his thoughts, that it was because of who they were that they could not. They had seen the cost of wars and violence for generations, and they chose a different path. One they could be proud of. One that had led him to Yuuri. 

He reached over and gripped Yuuri’s hand, feeling the other man shift and lean into his side. He couldn’t help but think of how wonderful it would have been to grow old with that warmth pressed against him each day.

With one last, long look over the horizon, and down towards the village, Viktor started again towards the stones, knowing Yuuri needed him to accept this fate. Viktor’s heart was shattering, but all he had to do was live; Yuuri had to die, and that seemed a much more difficult task.

They made their way slowly down the hillside, where the thick trees kept them in darkness, so reminiscent of how he arrived. Viktor was nearly as nimble as Yuuri now, moving down the steep slope without even needing to put out a hand to a helpful tree. All the better as it left his hand free to hold onto Yuuri’s. 

Finally, they approached the stones; as overwhelming and unreadable as ever. Yuuri stepped inside and instantly the stones began to glow, one after another bursting to life as the words carved out constellations all around them, all coming together in the center of the stone floor.

A single divot glowed, waiting, Viktor knew, for his touch.

It was time to go home.

“I never thought something like this would ever happen,” Yuuri whispered, and as Viktor turned, he saw the tears streaming from Yuuri’s eyes. “But I’m glad it did. I’m glad I met you; I’m glad I fell in love with you. These five days have been the happiest in my life, and know that no matter how I die, I will do so with a smile on my face because I loved you.”

Viktor sobbed, lunging forward and catching Yuuri’s face in his hands as he kissed the other man fiercely, ignoring the tears and snot issuing from both of them, focusing only on the softness of Yuuri’s lips.

A beam of sunlight broke through the tree branches and Yuuuri stepped back as Viktor stood rooted on the spot. Back again, until Viktor’s hand was stretched as far as he could, their fingers barely connected.

Back again. Viktor’s hand fell to his side and Yuuri smiled sadly, stepping out of the ring, and nodding at Viktor.

Their time was over.

Without ever taking his eyes off Yuuri, Viktor leaned down and placed his finger over the glowing groove.

“I love you,” he said, his voice thick with emotion.

Yuuri nodded, his smile sad, and Viktor pressed his finger to the hole. The world surged around him, the wind roaring to life as gravity itself sought to deny this exploit of time; and through the din, Viktor heard the whisper. “I’ll always be with you.”

Cold stone slammed against Viktor’s knees, reverberating up his body in an aching pain that was nothing to the cracking of his very soul as he fell to the ground and let the sobs take over him. He knew he was back in his time— the glow of the lanterns was so familiar to his eyes. He lay there, in the dark, crying for what he had lost, and all he had found. Cried for himself and for the dozens of people who had never harmed anyone, but were long since dead.

Dead because time held no home for them.

Viktor wasn’t sure how long he laid there, lost in his emotions, but a ping from his computer had him sitting up and accepting the unexpected Skype call without thinking.

“Oi, you look like shit, old man.”

Viktor couldn’t help himself as he let out a laugh. Trust Yuri Plisetsky, of all people, to be the one to see him in this state. “Sorry, Yuri. Having a hard day.”

Yuri looked uncomfortable but shrugged. “You need me to call Lilia?”

Viktor shook his head and wiped his eyes, smiling at the boy who sat before him; the key to unlocking everything. “Is Yakov planning to bring you here?”

Yuri shrugged, “I want to, but he hasn’t said. He thinks I’ll be in the way or get into trouble.”

Viktor hummed. “For what it’s worth, I think you’d be fine, but your Grandfather did entrust your care to Yakov so I won’t argue, but I would like your help on this translating. You game?”

“Of course!” Yuri said, sitting up in his chair thousands of miles away. He was in Yakov’s library, sitting in one of Yakov’s overstuffed, exceptionally squishy, armchairs. Viktor had always loved the library when he’d been studying with Yakov too.

Viktor smiled and began to explain. “So I’ve gotten some insight into how this whole language is structured since coming here, though I’m no closer to actually translating it. First of all, it’s a four-dimensional language. I thought maybe it was three, but I’ve noticed some clues that make me think it’s not.”

“Four dimensions? What do you mean?”

“Well each stone is a flat surface, but there is also writing on the ground stone. The position of each character relative to the whole effects its meaning, but not only that, each stone represents a particular time in history or the future. We need to stop trying to translate the ruin as a whole but look at each word’s position in  _ time _ . The same word in one part of the circle might look different on the other side because it’s from a different time. We need to map out each second of the circle and compare the symbols to languages that would correspond with languages of that era.”

Yuri studied him for a long moment before he replied. “Send me your stills. While looking at the relative time of each section will help, what you really need to do is find words that are represented in multiple areas of the circle. That will help you understand the base structure of the language so you can work around its fluctuations.” 

Viktor’s mouth dropped open. Why hadn’t  _ he _ thought of that? He grabbed his laptop and quickly dumped the massive file of stills into his cloud drive and sent Yuri a link. He watched as Yuri began to look over the photos, his eyes narrowed, head tilting slightly as he muttered to himself. “Cuneiform...but that one looks more like Jiahu. And this one has definite flares of Sinaitic, with maybe a hint of Ge’ez?  _ Blyad' _ …”

“Don’t let yet Yakov here you talk like that,” Viktor warned with a soft smile. He had grown fond of Yakov’s ward while he’d done his masters under Yakov, and to see the teen who was so often ambivalent about the world, alive with curiosity, made a part of him feel very warm with something akin to brotherly love. 

Yuri snorted softly. “Don’t worry about that. He’s given up. Says I’ll learn eventually when my first thesis is rejected ‘cause I cursed out a professor. As if I’d do that.”

“You would definitely do that,” Viktor deadpanned.

Yuri glared at him for a moment before his eyes returned to the stills. “I’m going to need time with these. I’ll let you know when I find some repeated words.”

Viktor nodded. “And I’ll work on translating individual words. I figure if I look at it like each word is a drunken form of another language, I should be able to at least recognize a few words. And once we can start linking them up with different forms on the other stones, it should all start getting clearer. We should be able to crack this.”

“To what end though?” Yuri asked. There was a burning thrill of curiosity burning in his eyes that made Viktor smile.

“It’s a map,” Viktor answered quietly, trying to ignore the pang of agony ripping through him as he remembered what lay waiting for him. “These people left something for us, and I need to find it. I need to…” he paused. He’d been about to say  _ I need to find him _ .

“You need sleep,” Yuri said, rolling his eyes. “You look like you’ve been up all night again and Lilia hates that. I’ll work while you sleep and I’ll call you if I make any amazing discoveries that will require you to list me as the second author on the paper you’d going to eventually write on this.”

Viktor burst out laughing, tears leaking from the corner of his eyes. Leave it to Yuri to always know just how to break the tension. “Of course. I was already planning on crediting you. I look forward to you giving me a reason to list you as my equal.”

Yuri all but glowed with excitement and pride, his back straightening as if he was ready to burst from joy. 

A bark rang out behind Yuri, causing the teen to jump in shock, swearing profusely.

“Is that Makka?” Viktor asked, curiously. It hadn’t sounded right...

“Na. Yakov’s new grad student has a dog and he’s helping to look after Makka. Those two mutts are constantly bugging Potya as if an animal as noble as she would ever deign to grace them with her company.”

Viktor ignored the slight against his beautiful poodle, knowing that Yuri didn’t actually hate dogs, he just loved his cat more; and Viktor really couldn’t blame anyone for loving their pet. “A new grad student?” Viktor asked. He hadn’t heard about this. “What’s he like?”

Yuri just shrugged. “A dweeb, like you, but he’s alright.” There was another bark and the sound of Yakov’s annoyed grumbling. “Better go. The old man says I need to at least pretend to do some actual schoolwork or else he won’t let me read over his article for him. As if. He knows I’m way better at editing than he is!”

Viktor couldn’t help but laugh as he signed off from the call, recalling how he too had had Yuri read over his papers when he was staying with Yakov. No fifteen year old had any right to be that smart, but Viktor found the teen all the more amusing for it. 

He straightened up, cracking his back as he did staring around at the stones as if searching for a place to start, and not really feeling any particular pull in one direction or another. He considered hiking back up the hill to get his sleeping bag and actually sleeping, but then he remembered Yuuri’s words. 

Lilia would be here soon to tell him about the bodies. 

Viktor sighed to himself and sank to the ground, leaning against the stone for his own time and closed his eyes. For one moment he let himself pretend that the wind ruffling his hair was actual Yuuri’s fingers; that he’d wake up in the morning to Yuuri curled against his chest. A pang of loneliness echoed through him, so keenly and familiar. It was a feeling Viktor had long since grown used to, but had been sharpened by knowing what life could be like, if even for just a few days, with love at your side.

“Viktor?” A quiet voice called out and Viktor opened his eyes. His lantern still glowed, but the light was diffused in the shadows left by the stones. His two favorite grad students were peering at him curiously and he smiled up at them.

“Mila, Sara, what can I do for you?”

“Sorry,” Mila said quietly. “We didn’t think you’d be asleep.”

“Nor did I think either of you would be awake,” Viktor countered, not unkindly.

Sara huffed. “We would have been, but Mari dragged us out of our tent to help her just after you headed down here.”

“Mari?” Viktor asked. He hadn’t met anyone by that name.

“That’s Lilia’s other PhD candidate; the one who’s been here for the past few months. She specializes in carbon dating and chemical analysis. Lilia’s had her looking at some weird residue they found last week and apparently they found something. Lilia wants you to come take a look.”

Viktor knew what he’d find and it took everything in him to stand, nod, and follow the girls. He didn’t want to see this. He didn’t want to see Yuuri’s fossilized body. But he knew. He knew he had no choice.

The next hour was a blur in Viktor’s eyes, his eyes glazing over as he took in the charred outlines of bodies, and a few, still well preserved, sleeping soundly in eternity. The children’s outlines remained carved out of the floor; three of them all curled together.

And one body, all but mummified, lay near the doorway, as if he was watching the stars one last time, sharing them with a lover in another time.

Viktor wanted to be sick.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and tried to school his features as he turned towards Lilia. Her face looked as pained as he felt. “I was hoping we’d find some sign of them moving on, but this… Even if some of them survived, whole generations were wiped out by this fire. It must have been so fast to have caught them all unaware like this. They look so peaceful.”

Viktor nodded, a lump rising in his through as he struggled to keep his emotions from bursting forth. Mila and Sara were already studying him with worried looks on their faces. Viktor sighed to himself and shook his head slowly. 

“I still think the stones are the best way to learn what happened here. Can I borrow Sara and Mila at the circles?”

Lilia glanced up at him for a long moment but sighed. “Fine, there’s not much more we can do here until we finished analyzing these remains. Mari says it’ll take a few days for the chemical analysis.”

Viktor nodded. “Who is this Mari? I haven’t met her.”

“Chemist and Forensic Archeologist. She’s a year ahead of you, but did her masters work with the chemistry department, so you wouldn’t have crossed paths with her before. You’ll run into her eventually; she tends to stay in the camp. It’s too difficult to drag all of her equipment down here. She takes what she needs and works there.”

Viktor nodded. “I can’t fault that, considering I’m going to be sleeping at the stones.”

“Please tell me you don’t plan to make us sleep there too,” Mila whined with an almost pained look on her face.

“Of course!” Viktor replied brightly, sharing a covert wink with Lilia as the girls moaned dejectedly. “Go grab your things girls. I’d hate to make you sleep on the hard ground because you didn’t bring your mats. I’m not totally uncaring.”

The girls grumbled, heading back towards camp, shoulders slumped. Viktor distinctly heard Sara mumble “workaholic” as she passed, and Viktor didn’t bother denying it.

“Have an undergrad bring us breakfast in the morning!” Viktor said, in a sing-song voice as followed the girls towards camp to collect his own things, waving to Lilia as he went. He distinctly heard her chuckle in response, and he couldn’t help but smile. As much as he was hurting from losing Yuuri, he couldn’t help but realize how much more alive he suddenly felt. Would he have found himself laughing this much before meeting Yuuri? As much as he wanted to argue he would, he knew in his heart that all along, Lilia had been right. He had never truly lived.

Not until he met Yuuri.

* * *

“Shut up, baba!”

Viktor smirked to himself as he listened to Yuri snipe at the girls via the skype chat as the two grad students teased the teenager. Yuri pretended to hate it, but Viktor knew the teen secretly liked working with the girls. The pricklier Yuri was, the more he respected you.

Over the past week they’d been making some truly incredible progress, far more than Viktor honestly thought he would have made before he’d traveled back in time, but there was still something missing. Some key that he knew was right on the tips of his fingers.

He sighed to himself and stretched, hearing a bark over Yuri’s speakers, a common occurrence during their chats.

“Ugh, I can’t wait till we leave in the morning and I get a break from these dogs for a few hours,” Yuri grumbled, though everyone within earshot knew he was lying. Viktor knew for a fact that Yuri had been researching tips for preparing dogs for plane travel, and was glad Yuri would be in charge of packing Makka away in her crate for the long flight. He couldn’t wait to see his best girl again, and to meet the new toy poodle who looked just like a mini Makkachin he’d seen scampering around behind Yuri for days.

“Yes, yes, we know, cats are superior,” Viktor muttered, earning him a snort from Mila and a huff from Yuri. “Say Yuri, what did that last character mean again?”

“Geez old man, I don’t know what’s going faster, your memory or your hair.”

Viktor lightly chucked a pen towards the computer, making the others laugh as he kept muttering to himself under his breath. He was so close; he could feel it.

“You know, it’s too bad Yuri isn’t older,” Sara said, the teasing tone slipping into her voice. “If he was, he and Viktor could date, and then their ship name could be ‘victuri’”.

Viktor straightened, his eyes widening as the girls cackled over Yuri’s indignant screams of disgust. 

“Victory…” Viktor whispered, his gaze flung towards the present stone. “Viktor. Yuuri.”

“What old man?!” Yuri growled.

“Shut up!” Viktor yelled, dashing over to the table and searching frantically through the books laying there until he found his rather worn, Japanese dictionary. “Yuuri, Yuuri,” he whispered, flipping the pages until he found the kanji he was looking for. “Yuu, ri. Brave. Courage. Victor. Winner… Victory! That’s it, Victory! You all, search the stones. Look for brave, courage, victor, winner, and victory - quickly!”

“Viktor...what?” Sara stuttered, confusion clearly etched on her face.

“Don’t ask, just do it!” Viktor dashed back to the present stone, searching the letters until… “Yuuri,” he gasped. There it was; he’d been thinking for a day now that one of these words looked a bit like his name in Russian, but had dismissed it. But why  _ wouldn’t _ his name be here? Why not Yuuri’s? Only they weren’t on just this stone – the villagers had  _ known _ him – Yuuri was famous. They weren’t just people, they were legend! And what better way to get Viktor’s attention then to put Yuuri’s name all over the stones? Only he hadn’t known it was Yuuri’s name.

Because Yuuri meant brave. Yuuri meat courage.

“There’s one here!” Mila beckoned.

“Two over here!” Sara called.

“There’s another two on the the next stone,” Yuri called from the computer.

“Mark them!” Viktor called, quickly moving from stone to stone, even those in the future, because now he knew Yuuri’s name, and he couldn’t  _ not  _ see it. It called to him. Over and over he spotted it, here and there, this stone and that. His name, Yuuri’s, again and again. And when they came together…

“Victory.” Viktor whispered as the image started becoming clear all around him. Mila and Sara were slapping post-its all over the stones, and Viktor could see it all, see where they were pointing.

“They’re not dead…” he whispered.

What?” Mila questioned, staring at him.

“Viktor!” 

All of their heads jerked up as Lilia called from above on the ridge.

“Viktor, the chemical analysis came back. They weren’t bodies! No one died in the fire!”

Viktor felt his breath catch in his throat. Where would you hide until the danger had passed? Where was the safest place in that village?

“Lilia!” Viktor gasped, staring once more at the stones as the last piece slammed into place. “I know where it is! I know where the stones lead!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Sorry for the 3-week delay between chapters. Who knew having surgery was so draining. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ It was just a gall bladder, so nothing serious, but it did it's best to stay in till the very end. Rude. Ended up with some larger than anticipated battle scars so I was down for the count much longer than I thought I'd be.
> 
> Hope you all enjoyed this chapter, and I'll do my best not to make you wait too long for the conclusion!
> 
> Next Week (hopefully): Chapter 6 - What Remains of You
> 
> I am going to attempt to respond to some comments this week, we'll see how I do. Thanks again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated!
> 
> Next week: Chapter 2 – The Paradox of Time

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Stones In The Wood](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21118826) by [elianthos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elianthos/pseuds/elianthos)


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